If This Be Heaven or Hell
by Morrigan24601
Summary: Erik has kept Christine in his house underground for two months, conflicted between desire and fear, not daring to touch her and yet unwilling to release her. But then she escapes…and Erik's pursuit has interesting, if entirely unforeseen, consequences.
1. Chapter 1: Lost & Found

The day I came home and Christine was nowhere to be found, I did not _immediately_ feel the slightest notion of panic.

I at first supposed she had sequestered herself away in one of the rooms, silently reading or sulking or primping or whatever it was women did when they were alone.

But to make sure, I called for her, in a moderate tone at first. When no answer came, I forced myself to shrug. Perhaps she was sleeping.

A few moments later in the deafening silence of the house, however, a strange feeling began to claw gently at my chest, and I called for her a bit more loudly.

When an answer still did not appear forthcoming, the strange feeling began to squeeze a bit more forcefully, but I pushed it back with an iron will. She was here, of course – _somewhere_ in the house. She _must_ be here. Where else could she be?

I pushed back the feeling of dread once again and began to methodically search each and every room. The sitting-room first – but despite the fact that the fire in the hearth burned merrily, the chairs and chaise were alone, and the writing-desk was abandoned.

Her room, then – but the door was open wide and the room itself was empty but for all of her frills and feminine things, and they were neatly stacked or hung in the armoire—she certainly did not hide among them, although I confess I did swiftly check behind the clothes-hangers to make utterly certain.

Her bath-room was further inside and I furtively knocked on the door, to which I received no response. I proclaimed my intention to enter, and again heard nothing. Taking a long, shaky breath, I opened the door in one swift movement and saw – nothing, except for her hair-brushes and hand mirror and robe and all the other little accoutrements that ladies seem to like in their places of cleanliness. I was, to be frank, a little relieved that she was not there – after all, it would never have done for me to have stumbled upon her in a state of compromise.

But after giving her bath-room that cursory glance and turning back to the bedroom, the feeling of dread returned. Where could she be?

I felt like a complete dunce when I got to my knees and looked under her bed, but I simply _had_ to make the cold feeling in my gut – and the increasing panic rising in my breast – go away. No, she was nowhere in her room, of that I was sure.

When I looked in the kitchen, nothing indicated her presence. There was no food or drink on the table; all of the dishes and cups were stacked prettily in the corner cabinet and both chairs stood neatly aligned in their proper place.

The feeling grew more and more uneasy. I still fought it back.

My room next – although I doubted she would be here as I always kept the door locked, I still needed to be thorough. But there was no Christine, not at the piano, not fiddling with any of my things, not asleep on the chaise longue and certainly not trying out my coffin for size.

I began to grow frantic. I did things that made little sense – I swept away a sheaf of papers as though I expected to find her underneath and I closed the lid of the coffin and opened it again as though I expected to find her inside.

My voice sounded harsh in my ears as I shouted her name again and again; I was not only frantic, I was beginning to grow strangely angry. What was she playing at? Was she, a mostly grown woman, playing some twisted game of hide-and-seek?

There was one place left – the workroom. That door was always locked as well, but I could not ignore any possibility, however remote.

I stumbled down the hall to the workroom; I fumbled with the lock like an incompetent fool, and at last pushed open the door with a noise akin to a sob.

She was not there. The workbenches and tables and tools sat like wood-and-metal ghosts in the darkness, and even when I lit the lamp and shoved it into every corner, I could not find a trace of her.

My mind broke for a moment, and in a few seconds of madness, I let out a shrill scream.

* * *

She'd escaped me.

After all I'd done for her, she'd escaped.

I always should have been careful not to let her see me manipulate the impossible locks on the front door. I should have known, should have been more conscious of it. Could I not _always_ feel her eyes on me? I always knew when she was there, even if I could not see her directly with my own eyes.

Her presence was ever a sweet, suffocating drug, blurring the edges of my reality and making me far less coherent and sharply aware than usual. The faint scent of her alone was enough; all the blood in my brain would abruptly be driven down to that point where I ached and throbbed, wanting to possess her as badly as a bitter miser ever wanted to squirrel away a storehouse full of gold, as badly as any dragon wanted to devour a maiden whole in one delicious swallow.

I had kept her here for two months – two long, god-awful months of wanting and not having, needing and not taking. I was afraid to touch her. I thought I would make things utterly worse if I did. And yet it wasn't enough. Simply having her here in my house all to myself wasn't enough. I _needed_ her. I needed her gentle fingers to trail across my twisted devil's lips, leaving fire in their wake. I wanted to claim every part of her with my mouth. Her fingers and palms. Her smooth, gleaming wrists. And what I imagined lay beneath her yards of clothing – small round breasts, soft belly, parted thighs, warm and terrible secrets.

No. It was enough, to have her here. It _had_ to be enough.

I had behaved. I hadn't touched her. Not once. Not even innocently had I dared lay a finger on her for fear I might lose my head, or frighten her.

And yet she had run away.

I couldn't make sense of it in my head. Hadn't I given her everything she wanted? I constantly spent what was left of my fortune on dresses and trinkets and sweets that I knew she liked, cossetting her and catering to what I thought should have been her every whim. I'd gladly have given my life for just one of her smiles, and my heart thumped painfully when I was graced with such—and yet…oh, and yet when those smiles came, _if_ they did, they were always thin and fleeting, hardly more than a brief flicker of upward movement from her lips. It was enough, and yet not nearly enough, and I hated myself for wanting more than she could possibly give me. I was a monster, after all, and while one might very quickly get used to monsters if they were kind, it might still be nigh impossible to ever truly _care_ for one. I was no fool. I was conscious of this. I still kept my face hidden away from her, sometimes even—oh, and this was a foolish _even_ —wearing my mask at night while I rested, thinking perhaps she might want to trouble me for something and stumble upon me with my face exposed in hideous glory. I could not bear the thought.

But then again, aside from petty trifles such as a glass of water (which she could and would almost certainly get herself, now knowing the way around my kitchen with perfect aplomb), why should I think she would ever try to disturb me at such late hours?

My treacherous body hoped for a particular answer to that absurd question, an answer which my mind all the while knew was patently impossible. But even so, embarrassment and confusion and a thousand other matters of the heart and brain and body kept me in a perpetual state of the preservation of my ego—what little was left of it, at any rate. I couldn't stand the thought of her seeing me—the real me—without first asking.

But that, too, was an absurd thought. She would never ask. I knew my girl.

I was suddenly overcome by that dreadfully delicious thought.

 _Mine_.

Had she ever _really_ been mine? I doubted it. She belonged to the strangers in the upper world, the cheerful and yet somehow utterly cheerless denizens of a sunlit realm in which I had no place or function.

And yet—she belonged here, too. I had occasionally caught sight of her tracing the dark patterns in the wall-paper, wandering through the house with a dreamy sort of abandonment, a sweet half-smile on her face which itself seemed a bit…out of place.

She had even told me once, in a hushed, reverent voice—and this was an insupportably happy memory—on one of the rare occasions when I deigned to allow her to come with me to the underground lake for a bit of a stroll, "It's so beautiful here, Erik. The sounds, the flickering bits of light. It's as though I've been spirited away to the otherworld, like a girl in one of the old tales."

I had almost touched her then. Almost.

Fear—the fear of what, exactly, would happen if I ever _did_ touch her—was such a powerfully toxic antithesis to desire. And yet it was also the poker that stirred the flame, making the longing that much more potent and difficult to bear.

I never could win when it came to my emotions. No-one had ever taught me how ordinary people felt, after all. My mother certainly hadn't. She'd taught me—inadvertently, perhaps, but successfully nonetheless—that fear meant one didn't touch any other people, or let any other people come near. I was indeed my mother's son in a few ways, at least (barring my appearance, of course), but I never would have counted that as a compliment.

* * *

There was a part of me that had been tempted _not_ to go after her. She'd made her choice; she _wanted_ to run away. _Let her, then,_ the callous part of me murmured. _Let her brave the dangers of the dank and dark, if she so wishes. Let her die when she falls prey to one of your traps; she'll vanish down here and never trouble you again._

Should I have been comforted by these thoughts? It seemed I was attempting to comfort myself, but these thoughts alone seized me with such terror I could hardly contain myself. No, not my little bird. She could not die. I would not _let_ her die. I could not allow her to fall prey to any sort of bodily torment, no matter how swift or slow.

A thousand scenarios flitted through my head like fire-flies in the night – she could drown; she could become trapped in a narrow passage and suffocate for lack of air; she could stumble into one of the wire traps, which were taut enough to take a grown man's arm or leg off in a single blow. She could bleed out or break a limb, and languish away from pain and starvation. She could lose her voice from screaming until no one could hear her or help her.

I had to find her. There was no other choice.

I burst out of my house, taking great care even in my panic to lock the door behind me. It wouldn't do very well for some interloper to find the way in while I was gone, after all – and I had no intention of letting Christine creep back into the house unnoticed, either. Face me she would, if she were still alive, and she _would_ explain herself. I would make her explain. The alternative – _finding her other than alive –_ no, that was too terrible. I was conscious of it, aware that it was a possibility, but for now I focused my senses on finding my girl _alive._ _Unharmed._

While I had overheard a great many fanciful fright-tales up above from the ballet rats and stage-hands about my purported ability to see perfectly in the dark, reality was far more practical. To be sure – I was used to the dark and my senses were heightened in it; I could, of course, "see" by sound and by feel, far better than most, and I supposed my strange eyes were able to adjust more swiftly and efficiently than an ordinary human's – perhaps. I was not blind in the dark, in a complete sense. But I possessed no preternatural ability to see perfectly in the darkness with my eyes, like a cat or a night-bird. And this time – unlike other times I stole about in my underground domain – I did not wish to be stealthy; I wanted her to know I looked and was coming. I had no wish to surprise her in the passageways and have her take ill or die of shock.

And so rather than steal away into the darkness armed only with my wits and other senses like a burglar or bandit, I took with me a stout torch to light my way.

My sense of smell was a fickle thing, due to the nature of my physiognomy (to be precise, my execrably ugly nasal orifice, lacking altogether the cartilage and extra flesh to make a _proper_ nose); at times scents were sharp and abrupt and overpowering, and at other times I could barely catch a whiff of a fragrance or odor. As such I did not generally depend on _that_ particularsense to guide me in a pursuit, but this time – _oh_. Oh, Christine.

I caught the deep scent of her perfume, the far too sensuous perfume I'd given her, the perfume she hardly ever seemed to wear (or perhaps that was simply my olfactory sense being fickle again and I hardly ever noticed).

The scent caused my mind to hurtle back to a particular occasion when she had been wearing a particular dress which seemed, to my mind, to dip slightly lower about her clavicle than was her general custom. I had smelt that perfume and turned my head and caught the most fleeting glimpse of the cleft between her breasts as she bent terribly close, her eyes not on me but on the music I had been furiously playing like a madman as I scribbled and pounded in a strange frenzy. I had, unwittingly, left the door to my bedroom open. Up until that moment, I had forgotten her almost completely.

" _My room,"_ I had said like a truant dunce, hardly knowing what I said as I said it, " _why are you in my room? Go away. Can't you see I'm working?"_

Her brow had furrowed, her gaze narrowed as it turned toward me, and with an odd sigh, she had swept herself away with a soft swish of crinoline, saying, " _Forgive me, Erik, I was merely curious…I shan't bother you now."_

Later that evening I had remembered that fleeting, tantalizing glimpse of forbidden territory and wondered if perhaps I should have let her linger. Perhaps, she…but that was folly. She was innocent of such things. She did not come to my room to tempt me, that was certain. She was _curious._ Of my music. And she had been little more than a distraction.

A very _pleasant_ distraction…

I dug my fingers into the wall closest to me, sweeping the torch round about me as I looked for her in one passage after another. Back to the present, Erik. Tart and treacherous thoughts were of little use, and if I continued to delay and allow myself to dully linger on distracting memories, I could count myself lucky to merely find her in one piece, alive or not.

More terrible scenarios stirred my limbs and chilled my blood, and I opened my mouth to call for her, but pride shut my lips. She would see the light from the torch if I happened to be close to her, would she not? No need to make myself appear desperate. I had no intention of letting her be the ultimate victor in her little game of cat-and-mouse. I planned to remain utterly aloof when I caught her, cold as a north sea and as immovable as Atlas.

At last, I heard it – the soft step of a feminine shoe, the unmistakable brush of heavy skirts against stone. I wanted to dash, but I paced myself. Reflexes or no, I was not fool enough to lose my head so that I should trip over a loose stone and set myself – or Christine – aflame.

I rounded the corner, and there she was. Had been, from the looks of it, for some time. The bottom of her skirt was caked with filth, her shoes ruined. She wore no gloves, and her fingers were dirty, as though she'd been using them to feel her way along the walls.

She grimaced at the sudden light, held her hand in front of her eyes to shield them from the blaze of the torch. For a moment, a fleeting moment, I felt a sudden pain in my gut, forgetting that I was wearing my mask. For that brief second until I came to my senses, I thought instinctively that she was shielding her eyes from my face.

Slowly, she lowered her hand, and her face was strange and inscrutable. There was silence all around us, nothing but the flickering light of the torch to illuminate ourselves. We regarded each other for a moment, the predator and the prey – but which was which? I was damned if I knew for certain.

I clenched one fist at my side, without meaning to – _that perfume, my God, it was invading my senses_ – and her suddenly sheepish gaze seemed to take in my stance, the language of my body. Although she no doubt had little to no idea of my struggle against the intoxication of her scent and nearness (and the sheer relief I felt at seeing her alive), she almost certainly knew, at the very least, that I was furious at her without my saying a word.

"I…I _am_ sorry," she said, and I blinked, not quite comprehending. If she was sorry, why had she left?

"Were you…were you very worried?" she asked in a whisper, her teeth catching briefly at her bottom lip as she nervously bit down, and I closed my eyes for a moment to block out the sight.

" _Worried,_ " I said calmly. "Ah. _Worried._ You ask me this – you _dare_ to ask me this. I thought – I…"

Abruptly I caught hold of myself, noting that my voice had begun to crack. I drew myself up to my full height, and surprised myself only a little by reaching for her arm, taking it less gingerly than I ever might have dreamed but a few days ago. "We're going," I said none too gently, and turned about with the torch. "Come."

She didn't struggle. She came with me – as meekly as a lamb. I might have been surprised by this too, but then again, the passages beneath the Opera were no picnic tableau, and for all I knew she was quite glad to be rescued.

When we had reached the house, I swept her inside and thrust the torch into the lake, where it fizzled and died. I regarded her, standing in my doorway looking like a lost and dirty orphan dressed in very fine clothes, and then I swiftly came inside myself and slammed the door.

She jumped – she looked positively startled now. I thought I should probably stop myself, I ought to probably be more the soul of deadly calm than of smoldering rage. But I couldn't seem to help it. My emotions were riding a wave of chaos, and Christine was unlucky enough to be a victim of the tide.

I opened my mouth to say something very nasty, but before I could say a word, she whispered, "Don't be angry, Erik…" and whatever verbal horrors had been bubbling up in my breast died a quick and undignified death, along with the breath from my lungs.

I leaned my back against the door. " _Don't be angry,_ " I muttered. "Don't be angry, you say? Pray, why should I not? As far as you are concerned, I ought to be fairly apoplectic with rage."

She opened her mouth and shut it again. "Erik," she said softly, and the sound of my name on her lips was an awful mix of heaven and purgatory, "I have apologized, haven't I? What more would you like me to do?"

 _Explain yourself,_ my mind shouted, but my mouth refused to say the words, and my shoulders slumped a bit. "I'm changing the configuration of the locks in a few moments," I said in an icy tone, "and I will thank you to remain in your room while I do. Further than that…" I trailed off, searching for something to say, and I abruptly kicked the door behind me with one heel in frustration. She backed away slowly.

"The washer-woman will of course see to your soiled clothes, when I have them delivered over to her Sunday next," I said in a voice that did not sound like mine. It was flat, lifeless. "Don't get any foolish ideas about including some sort of pleading note for anyone, either. If you…" It overcame me, suddenly, the horror of it all, and I turned away so that she wouldn't see the expression in my eyes.

" _Why?_ " I gasped out. "Why didn't you tell me you were unhappy?"

I heard her let out a swift breath behind me and I suddenly felt the warmth of her hovering only a few inches away. Was she just as afraid to touch me as I was to touch her? I hardly blamed her if she was. It was difficult to imagine her wanting to touch me at all.

"Erik, I don't know _how_ to speak to you about these things. When I try – when I want to – when I attempt to get up the courage and come to you – you shoo me away and make me feel like a disobedient child."

That day in my bedroom came back to me once again like a bolt of lightning and I felt like the lowest worm imaginable. I couldn't speak. I kept my face turned away from her, my back to her. I didn't move. I thought perhaps I was imagining her warmth approaching even nearer.

And then I felt it – her fingers grasping ever so timidly at my sleeve – and I panicked. I could not say what inspired it, but I could not fathom why she was trying to come anywhere near me at all, and I reacted like a wild animal baring its teeth when cornered by a kind stranger attempting to feed it meat.

" _Leave me,_ " I rasped, pulling my arm away from her seeking hand and flattening myself against the door-frame to pull farther away from the emanating warmth of her body behind.

I felt her pull back. I could practicallyfeel the expression on her face, one of wounded confusion, but I still did not turn. "Very well," she said in a trembling voice. "I'll be in my room."

"Yes," I said flatly. "That would be prudent. I should think you will remain in your room for a very long time, if I have anything to say about it."

" _I am not a child, Erik!"_ she shouted suddenly, her voice filled to the brim with some unidentifiable emotion, and I finally whipped about, narrowing my eyes.

"But you slink away like one," I said between my teeth, "the way I stole away from my mother's house when I was of a very tender age. I wanted to escape her too, because she was horrible. Am I very horrible, Christine?"

She stared at me with a face that seemed to drain of all its blood for a few moments.

"Yes," she said, "sometimes. Like now."

I slumped back against the doorframe again, regarding her with a kind of vitriolic defeat. "Go," I snapped. "Go to your room. Take off those dreadful clothes and…" I paused for a moment, glad she couldn't see the sudden rise of heat in my cheeks behind my mask. "What I meant was – you have dozens of fresh things to change into. Your shoes and skirts are caked with grime. I don't want you dirtying my house."

Her eyes flashed at me. She was angry now, too. "And yet you brought me back," she snapped, "although you clearly want nothing to do with me at all."

"That's the most ridiculous thing you've said all evening," I said with a voice like granite. "Go."

She went to her room then, shooting me another glance as she left that might have been the end of me if looks could be lethal. I didn't care. Let her hate me.

It was better than wondering if she was dead.


	2. Chapter 2: Love or Confusion

I worked at the locks for an hour, my glance darting this way and that to make sure she had not come up behind me again while I labored. The scent of her perfume lingered in the room still, although she herself was nowhere to be seen.

At length, I left off my tinkering and tested my new locks, and was pleased with the results. She'd never be able to fathom the combination now.

A sick feeling suddenly crept up in my stomach, tainting my satisfaction. My conscience pricked at me. Should I have taken her up above? I should have. I knew it. The moment I found her again in the tunnels, I should have returned her to the world and forgotten her, called it good riddance and let her be. But she had come with me back to my house _so willingly_ , and my body and brain had not been thinking with clarity.

I _did_ want her here, torment or not. It was better than being alone.

I took a long breath, then rose to my feet and crossed my house to Christine's bedroom. The door was not shut entirely; there was a crack of light. I knocked regardless; it was likely she had not meant to give me an invitation.

She opened the door, her eyes as spiteful now as they had been an hour ago. But I thought I detected something else…a tinge, perhaps, of sorrow. "What do you want?" she asked in a tone that was nearly utterly devoid of emotion.

"I…" I breathed in deeply again. "You're wearing a dressing-gown, Christine. I need you fully dressed. I'm taking you back. Up there. It's time."

Suddenly she looked as though she had been struck. Her eyes widened and her face took on a strange pallor. "You…" She swallowed. "I see." She turned quickly, but not before I happened to glimpse tears stinging at the corners of her eyes.

"Christine!" I said in an exasperated tone. "I don't understand! You left! You clearly wanted to be away, clearly wanted this to be over. Well, I'm giving that to you now, don't you see? _I wish to give you everything you want._ "

" _Not. Everything,"_ she said in a voice so low I barely heard it. I put aside my fear of touch and grabbed her by the shoulder, whipping her around to face me. "Confound it, woman!" I roared. "You're not making any sense! Don't you see I intend to make you happy by returning you?"

" _That_ would not make me happy," she said in what was almost a snarl. "Erik, I want – I need – oh, what's the use!" She wrenched my hand from her shoulder and I snatched it back as though it had been burned.

"I don't understand," I said, hating my voice for its change in tone. I was pleading now, like the child I had once been in my mother's house. I had never been able to fathom her moods either.

Christine let out a breath, swiping at her reddened face to brush away the tears. "No, I don't suppose you would," she said maddeningly, and I growled with anger.

"Women are such damnably confusing creatures," I suddenly snapped. "They'd carve your very heart out from your breast and then hold it aloft with the blood dripping down, and _still_ claim they never meant to cause you any harm."

"Oh, to hell with you and your stupid ideas about women," she said angrily through her tears, and now I was the one who felt as if I'd been struck. Christine, using vulgar language? "Women are not _so_ very complicated after all, Erik; men are the ones who never pay attention to anything and then blame _women_ for their confusion. A manmight ignore a fire as it blazed merrily about him and then hours later look all around and wonder dumbly why his house had turned to ash!"

Oho, my little cat had very sharp claws today, didn't she? This sort of talk was very unlike her, indeed, and I felt a keenly honed razor's-edge of irritation scrape across my thoughts. I gritted my teeth.

"If there is something you should like me to understand," I said slowly and deliberately, "I should like you to have out with it at once. I'm done with your strange insinuations and veiled references and stammering this or that and your _But, Erik_ s. Out with it! Why did you leave? Why are you unhappy, and why in God's name would it not improve your mood to be out of my house and back into the world to which you belong, if you wanted to be rid of this place—of _me_ —so much as that?"

She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, I realized that we were standing far closer together than I might have liked, and my blood pounded in my ears.

"Erik," she said, and her voice was soft and strange, "I don't know where I belong. I don't belong _up there_. I _had_ hoped that I belonged here, but…I can't bear it, Erik, I can't bear it when you don't touch me and when you tell me to get out of your room and you treat me as though I were a sort of fragile bird in a gilded cage! All this time, Erik, you've kept me here, and I've wondered _why._ You flood me with trinkets and clothing as if…well, almost as if to make up for the lack of your own presence, but you barely speak to me, and you _almost never touch me_ , not even my _hand_ or my _face,_ and it's _driving me mad!"_

I didn't understand her. I didn't…I had thought touching her even innocently would make things worse. I had never dreamed that it was the other way round.

"But…" My throat was dry. "But I…Christine, I'm so…why on earth would you want me to touch you?"

"Oh, you really are dense, you awful man," she moaned, and a strange laugh skipped out of her lips, a laugh which sounded more like a sob. She drew her hand across her eyes once more and then she straightened and looked at me with a steely glare.

 _Help me to understand, Christine,_ I pleaded in my head, unwilling to speak the words aloud.

"You don't…you don't wish to go back?" I asked stupidly, hardly daring to hope that this was not some delirious dream. She shook her head. "Please don't take me back, Erik," she said softly. I felt limp as I leaned against her doorframe.

"And you…I'm afraid I don't quite…" I wanted to talk about the other matter, of her purportedly _wanting_ me to touch her, but it seemed a loaded subject, one I was not entirely willing to broach at this particular moment. It was entirely innocent, of that I was sure…she had said _my hand or my face_ ; of course she meant ordinary touches, nothing untoward. _Face_ was a little intimate, but…

"Dinner," I said hurriedly. "I must…I ought to prepare dinner. It's past five, you know. You'll be hungry…how long were you out there in the…never mind, I don't want to know. You need a glass of wine to bring back the color in your cheeks – real color, healthy color, not that dreadful blotching from tears." I paled suddenly. "I don't mean to say that you're ugly, of course – you're quite fetching even when you cry." _Why was I still speaking?_

Oh, heaven help me. She was smiling. Only a little – that strange half-smile she sometimes had, the one I could never fathom to save my life. Why was she smiling? "Yes, please," she said. "Wine would do nicely. I may have quite a few glasses. I've never been inebriated before. Is it delightful or is it rather dull? You'll have to give me a few minutes to dress properly, of course…"

I didn't know this Christine. I'd never seen her before. She was flippant, unshrinking. What made me feel a good deal worse was that I didn't quite know whether I liked the new or the old Christine better.

* * *

Dinner was a strangely quiet affair. We barely spoke, and Christine picked at her food. Her strange brazenness from earlier appeared to have dimmed a bit.

At her request, before dinner I had donned the mask which showed my mouth ("I don't want to eat alone," she'd said), but this evening I had as little appetite as she, perhaps less. I was increasingly self-conscious and wished heartily that I had not acquiesced to her wish; every so often I saw her gaze dart to my exposed mouth and her expression was unreadable.

"I'll take another glass of wine now," she said, having finished her first, and I hesitantly obliged. "You're not generally given to drinking more than one glass of spirits," I said. "Are you sure you're quite all right?"

"Better now," she said primly.

"Christine, I…if you wish, we can take more walks," I said as she sipped her wine. "When you spoke before, about…touching, it occurred to me that a gentleman should surely have offered you his arm when we go out, and if that pleases you, I shall from now on. You must understand that I…I am not used to people. To ordinary things."

"Yes, I know," she said calmly, "and yes, that would please me. If you offered me your arm when we go out."

I felt a very small sense of satisfaction, mixed with uncertainty. "Well…good. That's good," I said. "I _do_ want you to be happy, Christine."

"Yes, I know," she said, and seemed to sip her wine a bit more forcefully than was needful. Before I knew it, she had done with that glass as well. "May I have another?" she asked me prettily, and I poured the wine wordlessly, not daring to deny her. She was being so…well, agreeable, in point of fact. Her pleasant and calm demeanor sharply contrasted with her outburst from earlier this evening, and I had no wish to spark another confusing debate.

She took a few sips and giggled into her glass. _Oh, dear,_ I thought. "I think perhaps it's best that this be your last glass," I said, hoping she didn't think me overbearing. I was only looking out for her welfare, after all…it wouldn't do to have to nurse her out of a splitting head-ache tomorrow. She'd be embarrassed, and I'd be annoyed, and nothing good would come of it.

As I prepared to cork the bottle, her hand darted out and grasped my wrist. I sucked in a sharp breath. " _You_ ought to have a bit more wine, I think," she said in a rather odd tone, and after a long moment, she slowly let go of me.

"I…I'd rather not," I said matter-of-factly, but she shook her head and laughed again, and her face was so flushed and beautiful that she made my body ache.

"Christine," I muttered pleadingly. "I don't…"

"Oh, come, Erik," she said imploringly in a voice so like and unlike her that my limbs seemed to turn to jelly. I could hardly muster enough strength to lift the bottle, but lift it I did, and shakily poured myself another stout glass.

Christine's eyes were so bright. They fairly shone as they looked at me, but there appeared to be a sliver of sadness in them too. "Erik," she said, "can we retire to the sitting-room? You can tell me stories about Brussels, and London – and America."

"I never did go to America," I said, "I only saw it in pictures."

"Well," she said, taking another long sip and nearly draining her glass, "London, then. And I'll tell you about my home-country, and teach you to speak like a natural-born Swede."

At any other time I might have enjoyed this light, airy talk, this strangely free air she seemed to have with me, but tonight my mind and heart were burdened with the lingering troubles of my earlier panic. I still hadn't entirely forgiven her for leaving, nor did I understand this utterly confounding change in her mood. I couldn't understand her at all, in point of fact, and it bothered me greatly.

"The sitting-room," she said insistently, and her words were a little shaky. She wasn't drunk, I thought – not quite – but she was certainly feeling the effects of the wine more than not.

I rose to my feet uncertainly. "Christine, perhaps we should – "

"Your arm," she said, and then added, with an oddly fetching little hiccup, "Please."

I sighed. " _Mademoiselle,_ " I said in a tone I hoped did not sound quite as sardonic as it felt, and proffered her my arm. These unusual niceties were all very well, but I was waiting for a hammer to fall, for everything to crumble. For her to tell me it had all been a lie this afternoon, that she _did_ want to leave, that she wanted nothing more to do with me, please and thank you very much. My heart grew a little cold at the thought, and I swallowed hard.

She took my arm and paused for a moment, her eyes sliding up to meet mine, and the cold band around my heart turned from ice into flame. The pressure of her fingers at my elbow was strangely delightful – _she was touching me, doing it willingly, no need for me to avoid her like the plague –_ and the soft, uncertain smile playing at her lips made my mind wander into uncharted territory. What if…what if _this_ were actually possible? Real, tangible bliss, like ordinary people?

I had a sudden image of waking up to Christine in my bed, or in hers, and my heart shivered violently. It wasn't the eroticism of the image – although there was an element of that – it was the domesticity of it, the simplicity, the normalcy. Love. Beauty. Tenderness.

Could I manage such a delicate, fragile thing as _living like everybody else?_ Like an ordinary man, instead of a rat in a trap?

More importantly – was it merely _the fantasy itself_ that lent such charm, or did I even _want_ such a thing to be a reality?

I was shaken by this entirely unexpected, treacherous thought – that perhaps nothing I imagined could ever be as good in waking life – and I hurriedly escorted Christine to the sitting-room. "I am…not feeling well," I said between heavy breaths. "I don't think I'm up to telling stories of Brussels or London tonight, and I hate to be such a churl, my dear, but I don't think I'd be a particularly good student of your native tongue either. Not tonight, at least. Another night…another afternoon…I'd be most glad of it. I would love to learn to converse with you in the language of your fathers. But I'm distracted tonight, and I don't want to play the selfish demon again, and I…I _would_ be gratified if we could sit here in front of the fire for a little while and you could…perhaps…speak your thoughts. As plainly or as little as you wish."

Her hand slid away from my elbow, and I suddenly ached for more contact. How could I have ever thought it a terrible thing?

My sweet, troubled, confusing Christine…her brow furrowed and she sighed. We sat awkwardly at opposite ends of the little couch, the space between us giving some strange comfort, perhaps. The silence was tangible, and I haltingly cleared my throat.

"Erik," she said at last, "I hardly know what to say. I do want to apologize, however, for…leaving. Running away, if you'd call it that. I left, and I didn't tell you I was leaving, and I know that it caused you a very great deal of pain and worry. But I think what puzzles me the most – and do forgive me if this makes hardly a bit of sense, because it makes little sense even to me – is that I…well, that is…I only did it because I _wanted you to find me_."

I found this difficult to absorb. "You…wanted me to find you?" I stared at her. "What kind of silly game –"

"Oh, Erik, believe me, I know it wasn't right, and it certainly wasn't a game," she said hurriedly. Her face was still flushed, and her bosom heaved a little as she took in a deep, shaky breath. "I can't explain it, not in plain words. I don't know how else to…"

I slammed my fist down beside me, and Christine jumped a little, her face drawn. I curled my fingers into the tightly woven work of the fabric and glared at the woman who would no doubt baffle me until the day I died.

"You drove me to distraction looking for you," I said between my teeth. "I _tore the house apart. I looked in places where I knew you wouldn't be because I was so frightened that I simply had to be sure._ "

Her eyes glistened, tears not quite yet spilling from their precarious position atop her lashes. "Oh, and I am so sorry for that – _I am!"_ she said with an awful, almost pathetic earnestness. "I never thought…I didn't stop to think…"

I wanted to be angry, and I was, but I was tired as well – so very tired. Exhausted by the day's events, really. Instead of shouting, I leaned my head into my fist and closed my eyes. "Christine, I don't want to hear your apologies. I understand quite well by now that your little stunt this afternoon was apparently nothing more than a thoughtless prank, not calculated to frighten me but to goad me somehow, into…what?" I opened my eyes and glared at her. "Into what?"

She leaned back and helplessly stared at her hands.

"Christine, _don't do that_. I have a habit of becoming very annoyed when I ask a direct question of anyone and do not receive a response."

She shivered as she looked at me, and I again felt keenly conscious of my mouth and chin laid bare to her gaze. The child in me wanted to fling my hand up to block it all from view, but the monster rather wanted her to look. Let her be repulsed. She'd asked me to wear this particular mask in lieu of my normal attire, hadn't she?

"I find it rather laughable," I said coldly, "that you claim to wish to stay here and yet clearly find my company more than a tad distasteful. A bit of a paradox, no?"

"Oh, you can be so hateful," she spat in what was nearly a whisper, and I attempted to quell the rising alarm I felt at seeing the glistening trails on her cheeks – the tears had at last left their hiding-place and I hated the hold that sight had on me. Even I, who had very little social experience to draw from, knew that it was apparently supposed to be the responsibility of men to keep women from crying, or at least to comfort them when they did. Wasn't it?

 _Did_ she expect me to comfort her? Should I?

 _Balderdash,_ my mind suddenly protested. _Let her cry. You'll look an abject buffoon if you cater to her every whim. She's probably only crying to make you feel like the villain, when you know perfectly well you ought to be the hero. You found her, after all. She was the one who ran, and you were the one who went after her and cured her of the sick notion that she needed to be away in order to—_

And that was when it finally hit me like a shot.

"I only did it," she'd said, "because I _wanted you to find me._ "

 _She had thought she needed to run in order to get my attention._

I had been ignoring her so profoundly, it seemed, had been treating her so aloofly, that she felt the only way to capture my attention was to leave the house entirely. To make me search, seek, and bring her back.

It seemed…a strange thing, as she'd said herself. Improbable. Utter madness. But the idea wouldn't leave me, and a growing sense of panicked dread and excitement sprang up in my belly all at once.

"Ah," I said aloud, and her eyes darted up from her hands to meet my gaze. I swallowed, trying to allow my voice to remain cool, collected. "I think…I believe I understand now." My voice grew weaker. "That is…to a degree."

"Ah, a miracle!" she said in a voice that held more than a touch of bitterness, sarcasm even. It stung me, the swipe of the cat's claws, and I recoiled a little. I had spoiled everything, it seemed, all of her good cheer from earlier in the evening, and I was already second-guessing myself; I suddenly wanted to snatch back my words like a treat from an ill-behaved child. If I were wrong in my assumptions…ah, but what further harm could I possibly do? No more than what had already been done, I was certain.

Then again, perhaps it _would_ make everything worse; perhaps the thing to do was to forget, to let things slide back into the uneasy rhythm of our previous days before. Perhaps it would all blow over like a retreating summer storm.

But perhaps…and this was a far worse _perhaps_ …if we didn't speak of this, if we didn't have it out now, it would always be a cold shadow between us, rubbing painfully against a raw wound that would refuse to heal, a wound that would fester and burn – and in a brief moment I knew, with a cold feeling deep in my gut, that this would very likely not be the last time she discovered the trick behind the locks on the front door. She was strangely stubborn, my girl – always had been, even in the old days before she knew my voice. She would not ask me outright to return her to the upper world, I knew that now…but it gave me little comfort, for if this were not resolved—whatever this _thing_ that troubled her was—I feared suddenly that she might very well run away again for sheer _spite._

"She might just do it anyway, at that," I mumbled, "even if not for—" and then realized to my chagrin that I had spoken that particular thought aloud.

Christine's head tilted ever so slightly as she coolly regarded me. "Do…what?" she asked, as a strange expression tugged just a little at her face.

I shook my head. "Nothing," I said, and then forced myself to make the necessary, awkward inquiry. "Christine, when you…when you absconded from this house, were you—were you trying to make me… _notice_ you?" My chest hurt; it seemed such a wholly impertinent question. I half-expected to feel a slap rattle against my mask.

But no such thing occurred.

There was a sharp little intake of breath; she sat up straighter, as though a rod had been placed in her back. She stared at me and my insides felt uncomfortably warm.

"Notice me?" she asked softly, hesitating. "I—well, I—yes, I suppose I was."

I closed my eyes and in spite of myself, a small, rapid groan escaped my lips.

"I _notice_ you every day," I heard myself saying, with a particular vaguely lewd emphasis on the word _notice_ that I half-heartedly hoped she wouldn't catch. I wanted to make myself stop, but I couldn't, I couldn't stop; I was a runaway cart set loose down a steep hill, no way to halt my progress and certainly no way to reverse my descent. I opened my eyes. "Your presence, your very _scent_ drives me mad, did you know that, Christine?" _Stop,_ my good sense whispered frantically, but it was far too late. Her eyes were fixed on me, and I perceived that her mouth had come slightly open. "I can't bear it," I muttered. "You complain of me not touching you—oh, little fool, do you sincerely think I don't _want_ to touch you? I do—god help me, I do, Christine!—and yet I don't, because the thought utterly paralyzes me! Even now, I don't know if your maddeningly vague explanations mean what I am coming to think they might mean! It's utterly inconceivable to me, Christine, and I—" I broke off speaking abruptly, pressing my fingers to my lips to prevent myself from speaking further.

She didn't speak. I saw her hand move, just a little, reaching in my direction—but then she pulled it back, and I felt a terrible little knife-twist of rejection in my gut as she did.


	3. Chapter 3: The Color of Desire

We sat there in thick, clotting silence for a moment, she and I. The seconds seemed to stretch as though they were years. My mind searched wildly for something, anything to say, but it was as though I had been encased in granite; I could neither move nor speak, only stare and sit in anguish.

At length, she finally spoke.

"I was taught—all my life—not to be forward," she murmured, the tinge of bitterness plain in her voice. "I was told over and over by other people that my shyness _suited_ me, suited my femininity and that it could be used as an advantage itself. But I…and perhaps this is silly, unwomanly…but I have only ever felt entirely _paralyzed_ by that kind of thinking. I will admit that I have secretly admired the pluck and cutting wit of some of those brazen women who tread the boards – Sorelli, you know, is such a spitfire, but you should hear the things that are said about her behind her back. That she could have anyone she wanted, to be sure, but only as a…oh, pardon me, Erik…as a mistress – that no _respectable_ man would ever take her to wife. Things like…like that. And as much as I so desperately wished to speak my mind, to say and perhaps even _do_ whatever I wished, I didn't want to be—that. I care far too much about what others say, what they think. I didn't want to walk by and hear people whisper dreadful things about me, or hear about such things second-hand, which if you ask me, is far worse. I suppose as a consequence of it all, I…I gradually got the idea in my head that any man worth my wanting wouldn't care for me to tell my feelings plainly, at least not until he'd expressed _his_ first. There's this strange game of cat-and-mouse that people are taught to play _up there,_ Erik…Raoul and I played at it, like stupid children, and oh, please don't be angry, and don't stare. Nothing ever…nothing of consequence transpired between us. How could I ever truly attach myself to him, when half of me was always here, with you?"

This was too much. It was all too much. I couldn't seem to move. My mind tried to sift through all she'd told me in seemingly one breath.

I'm unsure how she took my silence, but it seemed to make her a shade nervous.

"Erik, I…when you spirited me away two months ago, I have a notion that you were—are—under the impression that it was at least marginally against my will," she said. "And although I confess that there _was_ some small annoyance on my part at first, some lingering expression of the life I had lived until then—for the most part I was glad, and I didn't dare argue the point with you when I'd had time to think…I thought that if you knew I truly _wanted_ to be here, that after that first shock I hadn't even minded my own disappearance from _up there_ , that you'd think me some kind of…of…oh, I don't know what I thought."

I remembered, as if it were a peculiar dream from long ago, the impulsive fit which had driven me to, as she put it, _spirit her away._ I wouldn't have termed it in half so complimentary a fashion. She somehow made it sound as though I'd taken her to fairy-land. But it hadn't been nearly so magic as she made it seem. It had been rough, and rude, and sudden.

* * *

 _~ Two months previously ~_

" _Christine,"_ I had said through her mirror as she brushed her hair in her dressing-room, forcing myself not to feel the slightest bit of regret about the hypnotic tone I lent to my voice so that she wouldn't be frightened. She'd turned her face toward the mirror in what seemed a breathless delight, a strange eagerness in her eyes that I miserably chalked up to that dreadful, preternatural power I had. The power of suggestion came so frightfully easily to me when I wanted to control other people. At various junctures in the past, with other less honorable sorts of people, it had given me an awful glee, but these days it made me feel as though I were covered in filth. I shuddered to think of what I could have made her do, had I been a more particularly vile kind of creature than merely the murdering, skulking monster I already was.

But that _particular_ kind of violent vice was unfathomable to me – strangely terrible to me in a way that might have struck others as singularly peculiar, given my proclivities for other kinds of violence and bodily harm. Even monsters have their limits, I suppose, and this was mine; besides this, even my own brand of violence was reserved only for people who deserved it, people who were not Christine. I never would have harmed a single hair on Christine's head, not for a palace of riches or the power to rule and bewitch all of mankind. None of these things mattered to me, really, not when it came down to brass tacks – I loved her, achingly and horridly and wonderfully so and I could not imagine anything else I should have liked better than her happiness, so long as it was I who provided it.

But she'd been getting ready for the boy, that night, getting ready for him to come fetch her and cart her off to yet another unbearable dinner engagement in some unfamiliar venue with food she couldn't pronounce, and a bill for which she would not have dared ask the total – a total that he would cavalierly pay by discreet cheque as though it were only a few sous from his pocket. She had told me of this, haltingly, during our last lesson. It made her uncomfortable, this hobnobbing with the rich. I could see that. It had dazzled her at first, oh, of course it had, but it was wearing on her now. She was of more simple stock, not given to airs or overwhelming finery. Like any girl in her position, of course, she certainly did not _mind_ a bit of extravagance now and again, provided there was some thought behind it. I had overheard her remark on this to him, just once, and it had given me a sick pleasure to see his expression, as though her words were an iron glove and he had been backhanded across his insipidly pretty face. It made my blood boil, to see that face. Women fawned over faces like that – why didn't he pursue more willing prey and leave my little dove in her dovecote, snug and protected? He liked to think he knew her, but he knew her very little.

" _Raoul, it's lovely, this necklace, and it might look very well on one of your sisters…it's a bit much for me, you see. I can't imagine wearing it. Oh, it's not that I'm ungrateful, don't think that! You can take it back if you like, instead. It's only…dear, it's only that I do wish sometimes that you would ask me what I like, instead of trying to decide it for me."_

And he had, the great buffoon, he had frequently assumed that his tastes and those of his kin were suitable for my little northern songbird, who might have made even a flour sack look fit for a queen and needed no gaudy adornment to enhance her lovely features. On the occasions _I_ bought her jewelry after she was in my house, I made sure to buy things catering more to her tastes…small precious pendants on thin gold chains, a little sapphire broach which was lovely but practical, a pair of very modest earrings.

At any rate, it was this seemingly blatant disregard for her feelings on the part of her would-be Adonis that had spurred me to that particular moment on that particular evening when I took her away.

" _Christine, haven't I told you it isn't good for you to be hanging about with the Vicomte?_ " I had said in the Voice.

"You have," she'd said in that strange, dreamy voice – how I almost loathed the effect my voice had on people at that moment, almost loathed the power it gave me. I would have given away that power in an instant for an ordinary face, the most plain and ordinary in the world, not even a _handsome_ face; even plain and ordinary would have been far more appealing than the visage I would bear until the end of my days.

" _Why do you go to him, child, time after time? Why do you accept his thoughtless gifts?_ "

"Because he claims to love me, I suppose," she'd said, a small frown creasing her beautiful brow. "I can't seem to deny him much of anything, really – he is such an old friend, Angel," and I'd realized then that the Voice had made her temporarily regress back to that time months before she'd known my name, before she'd known I was flesh instead of spirit. Part of me bitterly missed those days, her sweet trust, her unmitigated joy at my unseen presence, the feeling of safety as I hid behind an invisible cloak of utter anonymity. But that time had long been relegated to the annals of memory, other than the strange, bittersweet effect my hypnotic tones seemed to have upon her now.

What I said next had been born of sheer impulse, a frenzied stab in the dark at an unknowable foe. " _If he asked you to marry him,_ " I queried in the Voice, " _would you accept?_ "

A look of dread had crossed her face. "I—oh, that had not occurred to me. Or it had—but…oh, dear. I don't…Angel, I don't think I want to marry him. But how could I refuse, if he asked me? Everyone would think me out of my head for refusing him. And I might not see him ever again. He might be angry, too angry even to speak to me, and I couldn't bear that. I _do_ wish I knew what to do."

Impulse had seized me again. There was a shadow of doubt in her mind. She did not belong to him, not utterly. If I did not act, I might lose her forever, and I could not have borne that, not when there was a ghost of a chance I could make her mine.

I had stepped out from behind the mirror, motioned for her to come with me. She had risen like a sleepwalker, come with me without complaint or question.

I had bidden her, in that dreamlike state, to write a note to the Vicomte, saying that she had changed her mind about to-night, and about a great many other things; she was going on holiday and needed time to think, and she would leave no forwarding address.

And then we had gone, she and I, down to my house, leaving no other trace of her sudden departure. I confess I hadn't thought the matter through as well as I should have; impulse leaves little room for sense. All I could think about was her—her small frame so close by as I hummed in the Voice to keep her docile and unafraid, the fresh, clean scent of her hair, and that eager look she'd had when I'd spoken to her in her dressing-room, along with the glimmer of discontent in her voice when she'd spoken of _him._ I'd thought of all these things over and over as we made our way down to my house, and once we had gotten inside, I'd had a little more time to think as I released my vocal hold on her.

She'd snapped to attention for a moment and then slumped like a discarded marionette, and when she'd realized where she was, she had gone frantic for a moment. "You must take me back!" she'd demanded. "I don't care if this is only for a few days, I have to see him—have to explain—Erik, this isn't like the old days when I was a nobody, there are _things_ that need to be done! We'd made dinner plans for this evening, he and I, and I have to tell him I can't – and the auditions for the new production of _Faustus_ will begin in the morning! What will they think when I don't turn up? My god, my _career…_ "

I had almost given it up right then and there. But something held me back. "I shall explain to the managers that you have gone away on a holiday for your health, just as you have explained in a note to that boy," I had said in a voice that was far more calm than I'd felt. "Any roles you could have filled will go to others for the moment. Oh, obviously none of them have your talent; even so, the public is apt to be forgetful - but I shall make sure you are not forgotten. The managers _will not_ refuse you employment when you return. They will have me to answer to if they dare to try."

"How…how long _shall_ I be here, Erik?" she had asked, and it had seemed to me that a strange tone had suddenly crept into her voice, mixed with the panic of before, a note of… longing? (I had, of course, dismissed this at the time as being utterly absurd.)

"As long as it takes to focus yourself on your task—you need not trouble your head about the boy," I'd said. "Your voice is all that matters, and I expect you to care for it. You have been neglecting it of late."

The flush that appeared on her face might have been pretty but for the sour expression she bore along with it. "Oh, Erik, I don't understand you at all," she had spat out. "You want me to care for my voice and yet you intend to keep me away from the stage?"

My nerve had nearly failed me, but I had pressed on. "From everyone, in point of fact," I had said rather firmly.

A slight shriek had risen from her lips, quickly stifled by the press of her own hand. Her cheeks had gone white, and her next sentence, when her hand finally lowered, was flat and lifeless. "This is it, then," she said. "No good-byes to anyone _up there_. No chance to leave my old life with some degree of dignity. You mean to keep me here indefinitely. Don't you." It was not a question.

I had not answered her. I hadn't dared. My mind had not progressed to that point…up until that moment I had been half-believing my own lies of returning her to the stage, to her life, but the truth was that I had no desire to let her return at all. The realization stunned me into silence—a coward's silence.

So I had turned away, silently, like the cur I was, and she had fled to her room and slammed shut the door with all the fury of a harpy from Hell's depths.

* * *

Now she and I were here in my sitting-room, two long months later, and she was saying things to me which made little sense, things that made my skin tingle and grow hot and cold at intervals. Would I _ever_ understand her?

Her hand, her smooth, pale hand fluttered to where it was very nearly touching mine. I couldn't seem to breathe properly. It was difficult to remember how to speak.

And then she really did touch me, and I couldn't move. Her hand moved even closer to my hand; her littlest finger brushed the skin of mine, and it was as though I'd been given an electric shock. I felt a sharp, sudden sensation race through my blood.

But this was no deadly current. This was something unknowable and delicious and utterly stupefying to me.

Her little finger hesitantly— _oh,_ so hesitantly—began to move a little against the side of my hand, a caress so light it might have been hardly noticeable to an ordinary person. But I—who had been touched so very little in my life, and almost never gently—I noticed everything.

The sensation of her finger caressing my hand was something I would be hard-pressed to explain in mere words. There was _something_ in her caress, something which was not merely pity. There was…dared I think it?...there seemed to be a certain level of _care_ in her touch. She cared for me…at least a little…and it was difficult to wrap my head around, but _she_ had at the very least implied as much, hadn't she?

Oh, those words. _"How could I ever truly attach myself to him, when half of me was always here, with you?"_

My own fingers stirred, with a will of their own, and without quite knowing what I was doing, I found myself sliding my fingers through hers, her hand and my hand gently entwined.

I heard her give a little gasp, and I shuddered, almost losing every ounce of nerve; my eyes flicked up in panic to meet hers, terrified of what I would find there. But her hand didn't move, didn't falter, didn't rip away from mine. And her face…my God, the expression on her face, some mixture of shock and delight.

Oh, I wanted to do terribly immoral things to her…I wanted to descend on her with my mouth, crushing and binding her to me, moving her body against mine in a frantic rhythm. I wanted to imprint myself upon her, make her mine, _mine,_ in every way imaginable.

Instead, I simply sat there feeling unbearably warm, as though I were being pricked with little pins. The delicious pressure of her hand in mine felt as though it were Heaven's grace sent to drive me mad.

Slowly, oh so slowly, her other hand reached forward, palm up, fingers extended as if in a desperate plea, and I took it, wrapped my other hand around hers a trifle less tentatively than she reached for mine. The tables were beginning to turn, a little—I was becoming bolder, now that she was beginning to give me leave. I forced myself to remain calm—bolder or not, leave given or not, this was still Christine, and I refused to let myself become heady or reckless enough to frighten her. It was as though I had convinced a shy, beautiful bird to alight on my palms and eat out of my hands, and I could not risk spooking her, spoiling this.

Her gaze was fixed on me, fixed on our hands. She seemed nearly as stupefied as I was, and I felt a light giddiness that had nothing to do with wine.

Then she began to move closer—all of her—and my breath shortened and caught, and I wondered yet again if this was all some delirious thing I'd dreamed up. Shortly I'd awaken after having dozed off, and things would almost certainly be confusing again, but not like _this_ , filled with things that made my blood pound in my ears and my thighs, and made me want to do things I'd only ever imagined and caught inadvertent, illicit glimpses of through cracks in doors.

No, shortly I should awaken from this tantalizing delirium of fantasy and things would almost certainly be quite ordinary again—no touching, her speech vague and hesitant, my demeanor abrupt and aloof, perhaps even a note from the boy slid into the seat in Box Five, saying _I've discovered everything, you cad; give her up at once or I shall send the police._

I shuddered.

But for now, the vision before me held, and so did her hands in mine.

"Erik…if I ask you a question, will you promise to answer—quite honestly?" she whispered. I let out a short, nervous bark of a laugh, which startled her, but I held fast to her hands. "Ironic, perhaps, that you should ask me this, when just minutes ago you yourself had to be coaxed into answering my queries," I muttered, and her own grip on my hands tightened. Her mouth formed a tight little line. "Yes," she said, "but I did answer, didn't I? If you promise me this, in return, I shall promise to quickly and honestly answer any question you care to put to me. _Any_ question, no matter how abrupt or strange."

A little tickling feeling of satisfaction wormed its way up my spine; I attempted to ignore this. I closed my eyes and nodded.

"You promise, then?" she asked, and I gritted my teeth. I did not like being pressed. " _Yes,_ " I growled, attempting to soften my annoyance as much as I could. Oh, we were hanging on a fragile thread, my girl and I…one wrong word from me might break the spell, might force reality back into play. I should have been lying had I said I was not utterly terrified by this possibility. Dream or no, I wanted very badly to play this sonata to its conclusion.

"Very well, then," she said, and took another breath. "Erik…I…this may seem improper, but…well, conventional proprieties have never really applied to us, have they, because after all, I've been _living here_ in your house for a great deal of time; granted, nothing remotely _untoward_ has ever taken place, but…"

I cleared my throat. Her face reddened. "Oh! Oh, I ought to get to the point, then. Well, I…I wonder. With everything you said before…about…about… _noticing_ me…I wonder too, if you…if you care for me. In more than a general sense."

"Christine, you're utterly confounding me," I blurted out before I could stop myself. "Whatever do you mean, _in more than a general sense?_ Do you mean—" I paused. Her eyes were fixed on me, wide and earnest and uncertain, and I again felt the unconscious tug of vulnerability left to me by this mask which did not conceal my features in its entirety.

I swallowed. "Do you mean—love?" Wild horses could have torn me to pieces at that moment, and it would have seemed a better fate than uttering that word aloud in Christine's presence, regarding my feelings toward her. It was more frightening than being touched.

"Y—yes," she said quickly, softly, the flush on her cheeks as crimson as ever. I was caught by the utterly disturbing and delightful thought of her pale skin flushing all over, laid bare beneath my fingers. I felt dizzy.

"Erik, you _promised_ ," she said reproachfully, and I realized that I had been silent for nearly a full minute.

"Yes," I said, "yes. I…" My mouth felt dry as cotton. I closed my eyes, opened them again, felt myself spiraling into an abyss from which I could not escape.

"Christine," I whispered, her name a prayer on my lips—what little I had of them to speak of—and it tumbled out of my mouth like water then. "I love you."


	4. Chapter 4: The Agony & The Ecstasy

A crackling shock seemed to sizzle in the air between us. Time had jelled, frozen, ceased. "I love you." I said it again. I wanted to press her fingers to my lips, but I still didn't dare.

Her mouth had gone a little slack, forming a small O.

"You know now, you know, I've answered it," I said, rocking back and forth just a little, feeling the horrible nervous dread move into my stomach again. "Are you pleased? More likely I think you ought to be horrified. I'm sorry. I wish I didn't—love you. Things would be ever so much easier if I didn't—not least for you, above everything else. But I do. I can't help it. It's like a sickness—it makes me hurt, it makes me feel almost ill sometimes. Oh, how I wish I were ordinary so that admitting it wouldn't be such a terrible thing, Christine! Other people give declarations of love and don't feel as though their insides are being torn from their moorings, don't they? The boy, when he told you he loved you, he didn't act like me at all, did he? He must have seemed very confident, very assured. Of course he would be, with a face like that! He wouldn't have had to worry at all."

Christine seemed deeply perturbed now. "Erik," she said almost violently, shaking my hands a little, " _Erik._ "

"But you told me…that night in the dressing-room, when I stole you away…you told me…" I stopped, pondered. My fingers twitched in hers, nervous and wanting more than anything to pull away, but also to remain.

And then she moved, and her fingers slid from mine and made their way—lightning-fast—to the sides of my mask, and I would have wrenched myself away entirely, but she didn't curl her hands around to remove it, she simply laid her hands on it, as though it were my real face. Her smaller fingers brushed along my exposed jaw, and I shuddered violently but did not pull away.

We sat like that for a moment, regarding each other. She was so careful—so cautious—as she slowly, gently slid her thumb over the part of my chin which was not hidden away by my mask, and a strangled, shuddering moan escaped my lips. "You don't know what you're doing," I murmured in what was nearly a sob, my blood pumping wildly through my body. "No one—no one _ever—_ " What I was trying to say was that the only time my face had ever been touched was by blows, that what she was doing was incomprehensible to me. I couldn't seem to form the words to make her understand this. Even so, it seemed she understood—she shushed me, gently, quietly. "It's all right," she whispered. "Everything will be all right."

 _Was_ I dreaming? It seemed that I was, as I could not comprehend this as reality, and yet—I had never experienced any dream as vivid as this.

I was shaking like a leaf, but I cupped her hands in mine, where they rested against my face. "Christine, you're mad," I whispered. "You've lost your senses. Or I've lost mine. I don't—"

Swiftly, she pressed her mouth to my mouth, and just as swiftly, she pulled back.

"Do you think I've lost my senses now?" she asked, and while my mind reeled from that dry, awkward kiss which had just taken place, she took my shaking hands and placed them on _her_ face.

"Christine, I don't—I can't—" My weak, horrified protests fell on deaf ears. My numb hands were on her face but they didn't feel as though they had any right to be there. I felt like a heretic defiling a sacred shrine with my devil's fingers, but after a moment, as she held my hands in place, I swept my thumb over her soft, smooth skin as she had done to my poor parchment. A breathless little laugh came out of her, and she turned her head to lay a kiss on one of my palms. A violent shiver seized me, and I felt almost sick. This felt wrong, dreadfully wrong. This was not the natural order of things. And yet…oh, God, and yet. Perhaps the natural order of things had been summarily turned upon its head. Perhaps by some strange twist of fate, I had been altered from devil to angel after all.

She rubbed her face against my hands, like a cat wanting to be stroked. "I've wanted you to touch me for _so long_ ," she whispered wildly, and a noise came out of me, a noise very like one that might come out of me had I been struck directly in the gut.

"You can't mean this," I said desperately, "you can't mean any of this. I don't understand." Her skin was temptingly soft, and I could hardly bear it, but I dropped my hands from her face as though they were made of lead.

She sighed, and regarded me with her deep blue eyes.

"Must I keep attempting to convince you?" she asked earnestly. "Erik, I don't know what to say, what to do. What can I do? What _should_ I do? Tell me. Tell me what you want. _Please_."

"What I want?" My voice sounded strange and hollow in my ears. I didn't know what she was asking me. "I want—I—"

What I wanted was to feel as though my life had some semblance of order again. What I wanted was to feel as though I were steering the ship, not the other way round. I wanted to move towards her again, but couldn't seem to stir my limbs.

"Christine, I—what do _you_ want?" I asked suddenly, and she gave a nervous little laugh. "Me?" she asked incredulously. "I…that's not what I asked."

"But it's what _I_ asked," I said rather stubbornly, "and you did promise—"

She bit her lip. "Of course...you're right."

There was a long pause. "I want…I want you to touch me," she said shakily. "I apologize if it makes me appear wanton and selfish, but…you asked what I wanted, and that's _all_ I've wanted for a terribly long count of days."

I gave a shuddering breath. The world really was upside-down. Christine thought herself selfish for wanting _me_ to touch _her?_ I had an inkling she had little idea of just how depraved my own imaginings were.

"Where?" I asked impulsively. I abruptly became belatedly aware of the latent inappropriateness of this question, but it was already hanging in the air, and I was unable to take it back.

She stared at me, blinked. She appeared to be mulling this over. "Anywhere, I suppose," she said, and a sudden flush crept up her neck into her cheeks, and one hand fluttered to her mouth; she looked thoroughly embarrassed to have said this.

I felt unbearably hot and cold at intervals. My rational frame of mind protested weakly in my head that she couldn't possibly mean _anywhere_ , but I was done listening to reason. Reason had not brought me to this point, after all; nothing was making sense, but I no longer cared. If she wanted me to touch her _anywhere,_ then by God, I would.

But at that, my mind abruptly fragmented into a million different points of desire and logic—there was an obvious place that I wanted to touch more than anything in the world, but surely I ought to…work up to it. I seemed to remember hearing about such things. But where on earth did she want me to touch her first? _Anywhere_ was deliciously permissive, but horribly vague.

Perhaps I ought to test my boundaries. I was still afraid of frightening her, of spoiling everything.

Her face had seemed perfectly permissible; she had seemed to enjoy being touched there. No need to start there, then, surely.

I reached out, my hand shaking, and lightly trailed my fingers down the side of her long white neck.

"Here?" I asked timidly. She shivered, and nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.

"Here?" My fingers continued their slow, timorous path and dipped gently into the hollow of her throat. Another nod; this time her eyes closed for a moment and her mouth opened ever so slightly.

I paused. I wanted to go further, but panic was beginning to seize me again, and I was desperately unsure of myself.

Her eyes opened again, and she graced me with a soft, beautiful smile that made my heart nearly stop. It emboldened me sufficiently. I slowly, slowly continued to draw my fingers along her clavicle, and then over the first button of her dress. " _Here?_ " I asked in a voice which had dropped a few pitches and thickened considerably with something almost fierce, something primeval.

Her breath had quickened. She still didn't speak, but nodded once more.

"Did you…" It was difficult for me to speak. Asking this, saying it aloud, was pure torture – but I had to know. "Did you truly mean… _anywhere?_ "

I couldn't fathom when I had ever seen her pale cheeks turn so crimson – and so often, at that – as they had time and again this evening. Her face seemed very close to mine. "I'm not entirely certain how I should answer such a question," she muttered. What an utterly maddening response!

Her hands had somehow reached my jacket, fiddling aimlessly with the lapels. Did she want me to remove it? The thought made me somewhat sick. _I_ hardly ever looked at my own body, if I could help it – the thought of _her_ looking on it, on almost any part of me, was nightmarish.

"Answer honestly," I said, trying to breathe ordinarily.

"I am overseeing a battle in my head," she said, "between my upbringing and my own feelings – what is proper, and what I should actually like to happen. I must decide the outcome very soon, it seems – which shall I name the victor, Erik?"

If I leaned any closer, I should be half-buried in her soft golden hair, several strands of which had come loose from its simple restraint of pins and ribbon. My sense of scent had faded again, but I could still catch a faint whiff of her tresses and I could feel the warmth of her emanating a few inches away.

"What was that you said earlier about…conventional proprieties?" I asked, feeling heat rise at the back of my neck as I inadvertently leaned only a little more toward her and one of her loose strands brushed my chin. "I think more of those have heretofore applied than you think. Personally, I should be quite glad to leave them all behind." I hardly knew what I was saying; the nearness of her was muddling my sense.

"Ah," she said softly, "then I ought to declare propriety the loser of the battle?"

"Do what you wish," I said, breathing in deeply and trying to smell her hair. "It makes little difference to me."

"Liar," she whispered, and a little lightning thrill shot through my bones. This was becoming quite sordid, wasn't it? The dour God of my devoutly Catholic mother would have been utterly horrified.

Christine's hands grasped my jacket, and her mouth met mine again, but this was no swift, dry kiss; this was something else, something I hadn't ever quite imagined. A thrum went through my blood, full of a strange mixture of pain and delight, and it was as though I'd been awakened – pulled up from the depths of a long sleep.

There was little room for the unfortunate thought that I had no idea of how to kiss her properly, or that perhaps my thin mouth was not up to the task; desire and instinct appeared to be key players in this movement of the sonata, and she certainly seemed to know what she was doing – and here I had to summarily quash the flash of white-hot jealousy that flooded me when I imagined her doing this with the boy. Had to remind myself of her earlier words, had to again remember that she had specifically asked me _not_ to deposit her stage-side, where she could have certainly accepted his attentions again. She was young, and so was he… " _He is such an old friend, Angel,_ " she had said to me, and of course, this explained it; she had felt obligated, pressed. Perhaps she had never loved him at all – I hoped this, I achingly hoped it; in fact, I fiercely wished I could flick my fingers and banish his very existence from her memory. But that would require the Voice, most likely, to a terrible and possibly damaging degree, and I had very little wish to use such power on her unless there was an absolutely desperate need.

Certainly _this_ kiss was of her own volition; I had not initiated it, had been shocked by the ascent of her lips upon mine. No underhanded coercion had caused this…at least, I didn't believe it had. Had I used the Voice on her unwittingly? No…no, that was folly. I had demanded nothing that I recalled, other than that she answer my questions. In fact, I had told her, just prior to this meeting of mouths, to _do whatever she wished._

The tip of her tongue touched mine, and then all thought and reason left me for a moment. I became greedy and heedless; one hand curled and clawed at her waist, pressing her closer, which made her gasp. My other hand fumbled at the pins in her hair, wanting it to come down.

I managed only a few pins before she stopped me, suddenly, took my hand and set it down. "Let me," she said.

The sight of her unbinding and unpinning her hair was an unexpectedly breathless intimacy; my chest hurt as she tossed aside the ribbon and pins and shook out her long mane so that it fell around her like a golden shroud. She looked at me uncertainly, her manner suddenly reserved. "Why don't you say anything, Erik?" she asked. "Why are you so still? You've seen my hair unbound before."

And it was true, I had; occasionally she had padded through my house at night while I worked, and I had caught glimpses of her, a picture of modesty but for her long shining hair falling freely about her shoulders, down to her waist.

My hands sat limply in front of me as I stared at her. "This…this is…different," I managed to mumble. My earlier rhythm of brazenness had broken like a wave against rocks, and I felt terribly shy again, although I supposed if she had unbound her hair for me, she shouldn't mind me touching it.

I leaned forward, snaked my fingers out so that they slid lightly through the section of hair which fell forward over her shoulder. I pressed a strand to my lips, shivering, and then I became bold again, remembering Christine's kisses to my palm, my mouth. On a sheer whim, I swept her long mass of hair back over her shoulder and gathered my fingers into the hair at the back of her neck, bending her head back slightly.

" _Anywhere?_ " I asked between my teeth, and she stared at me almost as if she didn't know me. "Y…yes," she said hesitantly, and then I moved forward and my tongue darted out to trace a path along the column of her throat; I wanted to taste her, I had wanted to taste her for at least as long as she claimed she had wanted me to touch her, but no, I knew it had been far longer than that. I had wanted to taste her the first time I had heard her singing begin to blossom under my tutelage, when her voice had ceased its cold, emotionless mechanics and become warm and full and alive.

She seemed paralyzed; perhaps she was uncertain of what to make of my newfound wantonness. I needed more, I had to have more. "Lie down," I gasped, and her breath hitched, but she did as I asked. I almost giggled in my giddiness; oh, my good girl, my obedient little student, _she was doing all of this without the Voice,_ and it was deliciously unreal;I knelt over her, and one by one, I shakily unclasped the first five buttons of her dress. There was more beneath; corset and chemise, which should surely have to be dealt with at some juncture, but at the very least I was able to reach my current target. I laved my tongue into the space between her breasts and a shuddery moan escaped me as her fingers curled around the back of my neck, goading me on.

More buttons, more _infernal_ buttons, but at last I had undone her basque; now I was stymied at what to do next. I paused, my confusion overriding my desire.

She sat up slowly, slipping the unbuttoned garment from her shoulders. "You'll have to unlace me," she said, turning so that I could see her back, the crisscrossed ties of her corset seeming at first a rather formidable obstacle. "Though if you'd rather, I can—"

"No," I said quickly. My fingers hesitated, then went to work. It wasn't nearly as bad as all that, after all, just a few knots and a bit of loosening, although it seemed to be taking an infernally long time. A large part of me wanted to have done with it and simply lift her skirts – chivalry be damned.

Abruptly, I looked about me; the sitting-room seemed a terribly rude place for a tryst – or at the very least, the exploration that I wished to accompany it.

She looked behind her. "Is something the matter?" she asked hesitantly. Her hair was a mussed halo about her face, and a thorn of sweet agony pierced through me. I wanted to devour her, to become her, to disappear inside her and mold my body and bones to hers. Being apart from her for even seconds was going to be torture after this.

"No," I said hoarsely, "nothing." I awkwardly gathered her up and rose painfully to my feet. She was light, even with her heavy skirts, but my wiry strength was not quite what it had been a decade or two ago. I was beginning to rapidly feel my age.

"Erik," she said, "what—" "A more appropriate setting," I said curtly, walking so swiftly to the corridor that I nearly stumbled with her weight in my arms. _Get hold of yourself, fool,_ I thought to myself. _A fine romantic picture it would make to trip and drop her where you fell!_

My good sense might have told me that my room was a less than ideal place, with the coffin prominent in the center and my music strewn about the floor, but I was acting on instinct, and my bed – unused though it had been for some time – was larger than hers. She spoke not a word as I carried her in, and it gave me some measure of comfort to be in a place that was so entirely mine, and mine alone – although it felt strange to be bringing her to it.

She wriggled a little when I put her down on my bed. "My corset," she said, and finished the loosening herself before I had a chance to move toward her. She paused, her cheeks crimson as she looked at me, her hands hovering over the clasps at the front. "Go on, then," I said rather impatiently, like a spoiled child eager for sweets – and then, overtaken by a rush of embarrassed humility, added in a more subdued tone, "Please."

She bit her lip and unclasped the corset, and slid it away from her body, dropping it on the floor where it hit with a soft little _thunk._ A small sigh – of relief, perhaps, for I couldn't fathom how women could bear to wear those things – escaped her lips. Her chemise was clinging to her upper body where it had been pressed against her by the corset, the tight wrinkles cleaving to her in a way which left precious little to the imagination.

I crawled toward her on my hands and knees, a supplicant worshipping at the shrine. "Please," I said again, my voice becoming a whisper, "please, _please_ ," not caring that she'd already given me permission time and again; I was becoming terrified once more that this would be snatched away from me, that I would wake up in my cold coffin and she would be gone again. Perhaps she _was_ gone; perhaps she had already married the boy, and these last two months had been nothing more than a fever dream.

A strangled cry came from my throat, and I clasped her, my breath against her skin. "Beautiful Christine," I said wildly, and to my absolute horror, I felt her fingers grasp my mask, as though to remove it from its place. I clapped my hand to it, sitting bolt upright and shaking. "What the devil are you doing? You can't," I said. "You mustn't. I won't allow you to. No."

She lay beneath me, the rose-pink tip of one breast very nearly visible where the chemise had been pushed askew. Her breath was heavy, her limbs slack. "Why not?" she asked.

A dreadful sound came from my throat, the hoarse, skittering laugh of a madman. "You really _have_ taken leave of your senses," I snarled. She looked at me placidly, seemingly unperturbed by my outburst. "No," she said. "I haven't."

"Christine," I snapped. "Can you possibly be serious? _I_ haven't yet forgotten the very first time those lovely fingers of yours snatched off the barrier to my shame. Have you?"

She bit her lip again. "No," she said. "No, I didn't forget."

"Then why in God's name would you—" I shook my head, both hands holding my mask firmly in place in case she tried anything foolish. "This was a mistake," I said, the words dragging through me like hot coals. "I can't—"

"Erik, if you'd rather leave it on, I shan't stop you. I won't try to take it off," she said. "I'm sorry. I thought—no, never mind. It's all right. But don't send me away, please don't."

I looked down at my girl, at her mussed hair and her wrinkled chemise and flushed cheeks, her hands lifted up, stopping just short of my clothes. She seemed startled, taken aback. Dear god, she was so young.

The thorn pierced my heart again. "Oh, forgive me," I said, "forgive me, my little bird, but I can't. Not yet. I can't let you see me, not my face, not now. Perhaps…perhaps later. I don't know. Perhaps. I can't think of it now. I don't want to think of it. But I want to see _you_ , I want to see you _so badly_. Will you let me?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. There was a dreadful reproach in her expression. "Promise me," she said, " _promise_ me you'll let me look at you later. I know you can't bear it, that you think you're too terrible to look at, but I…I don't care, Erik. When I first saw you, it was an entirely different time—"

" _Christine_ ," I said between my teeth, and her mouth became a thin line. "Promise," she said firmly. "It isn't fair if you don't."

 _Would she ever cease to madden me?_ My fingers turned to claws against my mask. " _I promise,_ " I said, although saying it felt as though I had swallowed shards of glass.

"Thank you," she whispered. She grasped tentatively at my sleeve, and I let her lead my arm down; she placed my hand on her breast, and my blood turned to fire in my veins. I cupped that mound of flesh in my hand, tracing my thumb over soft skin and the top of her chemise, and a breathy little high-pitched sound escaped her.

It really was delightful; I warily bent my head down, eyes flicking up to make sure she was not planning to make a sudden move toward my mask. But she hadn't moved, wasn't moving; she was looking at me almost…expectantly. I might as well accept that it was utterly impossible to understand her, and that if I tried too hard to do so, I should probably make myself ill.

I removed my hand from her bosom and instead grasped her soft wrists. This nicely served a double purpose; I took pleasure from the delicate feel of them beneath my fingers, and it also meant that I was safe from any possible meddling with my mask.

I pondered for a moment; my own hands were now no longer free. Never one to leave a problem without a solution, I took the lacy line of her chemise between my teeth and pulled slightly so that it came down over both her breasts.

She gasped a little, and I hummed delightedly in my throat as I took one of them in my mouth. This was supplication, too; this was absolution and ascension from purgatory to paradise. It also seemed a rather erotic experiment in science. My tongue flicked curiously against the tender nipple, and her hips bucked underneath me. Yes, that was good, then.

I wanted to kiss her on the mouth again, but I wasn't sure I dared. I had a good mind that most of the things I had done to her this evening had been heretofore unexplored territory for her – which made me feel slightly more confident about performing them despite my own lack of experience – but kissing was the one thing in which she clearly had the upper hand. I hated the thought that she might compare me to—

"Erik, you're _hurting_ me," she said, turning her wrists about in my grip, and my hands sprang open, releasing her at once.

"Swear to me you won't touch my mask without permission," I said.

She regarded me rather sourly for a moment. "I swear," she said. "Although I thought I already _had_ promised."

"Did I hurt you badly?" I asked suddenly. "Christine—" I gently took her wrists and turned them to face me. They were a little red, but thankfully there were no bruises.

"No, I'm all right," she said. "Though I should appreciate it if you didn't hold my wrists _quite_ so tightly in the future."

"Of course. I—" A sudden flush rose up the back of my neck as I abruptly grasped the varying possible implications of that statement. "I won't," I stammered. "Hold them so tightly, that is—in the future."

She had that odd smile on her mouth again, that funny little tilt.

"Don't look at me that way," I said. "I don't know what you're thinking when you look at me that way. It's intolerable. At any rate—"

I skated my fingers over her skin, and a pleasurable shudder ran through me. "More?" I asked. "Can I do more?"

She nodded her assent yet again, and I pulled the straps of her chemise down over her shoulders and arms so that it hung loosely about her sides. "Put your arms up over your head on the pillow— _yes,_ just like that," I murmured. "My good girl, so good," and I pulled the chemise down further so that I could see her ribs, her belly. I drew my mouth and tongue over these too, lapping up her taste and faint scent like a dog hungry for scraps.

My hands fumbled with the buttons at the side of her skirt, and her hands joined mine in pushing it down over her petticoats. I suddenly noticed she wasn't wearing any shoes; perhaps she had kicked them off in the sitting-room when I had told her to lie down. Oh, this felt dreadfully wrong, but I didn't care; so many of her layers had already been shed, and her stockings were merely one more barrier. I mapped the shape of her legs with my hands – the slender, strong dancer's ankles, the coltish curve of calves and smooth knobs of knees, and the lace and garters at her thighs beneath her modest combinations. I suddenly realized that my whole head had gone beneath her petticoat and she was not reproaching me; I felt encased in a thin cocoon of warmth and welcome that I had never dared to expect, and a red-hot streak of eager delight sliced through my veins.

"Erik, my petticoat," she said, fumbling with the drawstring ribbons holding it in place. "I'm afraid you shan't be able to breath under there—"

"I'm quite all right, Christine," I said from beneath her ruffles and lace, my hand darting out and moving hers away. A thought had come to me, and I wanted very much to act upon it. "Don't lift it up, my dear…don't. And whatever you do, don't look."

"Erik, what on earth—"

I came out from under her petticoat, glaring fiercely at her. "Don't. Look," I said. "Pretend this is one of our lessons. Pretend I'm teaching you to breathe again—only instead of telling you how to breathe, I'm telling you _not to look._ "

"Erik, why must you _always_ insist—"

"Christine, I am becoming quite impatient with this conversation," I growled. "Close your eyes."

With a sigh, she did so. Making sure she was not looking through glimmering slits, I quickly removed my mask and plunged under her petticoat again, rubbing my bare cheek against the soft fabric of her stocking and knee-length undergarments. A breathless moan came out of me, and she squirmed under my hands. "Erik—"

"Don't look," I whispered, and gently, experimentally drew my fingers over the place between her legs. Oh, yes, that was a delightful sound she made. I needed more. I unloosened more buttons— _more_ buttons!—and yanked and tugged at the lower half of her combinations, until I had finally found what I sought.

Oh, yes, this— _this_ was what I had spent so much sleepless time wanting. Wanting to find the very center of her, wanting to discover and touch and taste. I pressed a kiss to the tawny curls and warm skin beneath, and was rewarded with a very feminine little sigh from above the petticoat. I drew my fingers downward, and oh, how warm, how slick, and that was only the very outer rim of this flower of flesh. I slid my thumb inside—yet another experiment—and her back arched. " _Ohh_ ," she gasped.

I must have looked an awful picture at that moment, a scarecrow hunched up beneath her petticoats with some dreadful rictus grin on my face—I had never smiled into a mirror, let alone from ear to ear, but I could well imagine it looked rather horrible. It was a mercy she couldn't see me. But _oh,_ this was bliss, this warm, wet hollow, and I hadn't even worked up to the other, more obvious act yet.

"I can't…oh, I shouldn't…" she whispered half-heartedly – perhaps still struggling with that dreadful beast of propriety – but she made no move to stop me, and I murmured wildly to her to _let it go, let me, please let your Erik do this, oh please,_ and she relaxed.

My breath grew taut and shallow as I put my scant mouth ever closer to that deep pink rose of flesh. Part of me still felt utterly paralyzed; I still really felt I had no right, none at all, but my warm breath on her womanhood appeared to spur her on – I suddenly felt her fingers clutch at my head through her petticoat, and a breathy little moan escaped her lips. A growl came out of my throat, and I let my tongue dart out to taste her, hot and slick and quivering. A sweet little cry from Christine drove me nearly to madness – not the dreadful black depths of horror and rage to which I had heretofore been accustomed, but a kind of aching, wonderful madness of which I had never yet dreamed before this.

She tightened against me as I drew my fingers over her yet again – her hollow was closed to me, but I wanted her to open to me like a waking tulip greeting the dawn.

A battle took place in me which was both tender and predatory. The predatory won out. I pressed a little with my fingers, and she squirmed in a way that did not seem at all as though it came from pleasure. The tender came back, and a spear of panic went through me as she made a noise of discomfort.

"Can I?" I pleaded. "Oh, please, I won't hurt you, I promise I won't, and if I do, it won't last." I was not bluffing, not entirely – I couldn't exactly pretend to know much about these things from experience, but I had certainly listened, and read, and seen enough to think I knew at least this much.

"Promise," she whispered. "You promise."

"Yes, yes, oh yes," I murmured, and before I could lose my nerve, I pressed forward with my fingers, deep and swift. She let out a choked cry, which quickly subsided into a strange breathlessness; she let out a few little sobs of air.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whispered against her nether-curls, feeling so hungry and so empty I wanted to die. I almost removed my fingers at once, but the feeling of her was indescribable and I could not bring myself to withdraw yet.

"No…no, it's all right…I think…" she said uncertainly. "Oh, Erik, I wish you would let me see you—"

I could ordinarily deny her nothing, but I didn't want this, not yet, not now. "Tell me if this pains you," I said as gently as I could muster, and I began to slowly move my hand.

I held my breath for a moment, but she did not complain of any pain. Her breaths came more quickly, and she began making small sounds. I felt heat rise in my face, and the hunger came up in me like a sickness. But I beat it back, for the moment. This was good, and there was time. I would not allow myself to fall prey to petty urgency, not now. Not yet.

My free hand trailed over her thigh, the curve of hip and buttock, and the ache was nearly too much to bear. "So sweet," I murmured, "so beautiful." I must have whispered her name a dozen times as I worked her with my fingers, feeling a growing sense of delicious desperation as she writhed beneath my hand. "Erik…I don't know what…oh, help me," she keened, and I made sounds of my own as she threw her head back – I could see her just barely through the tight, pale threads of her petticoat. Oh, she was lovely, my wild bird, my darling. I half-expected her to turn to sand, to sift through my fingers like the soft grit of the desert, for I felt that I had touched and sullied a sacred thing, and I was sure I should be punished dearly; she might as well have been Artemis herself. But Artemis had shunned men entirely, hadn't she; she'd accepted no lovers at all, no one to coax her to scream a climax and shudder over the questing fingers of a hand. No mouth to tend to the moisture on and between her thighs, no tongue to lick her secrets up like sweets. No, Artemis would never have allowed these things, though I could scarcely imagine anyone wanting to bury himself in such coldness as what Artemis might have provided; my soft, supple, moaning little Christine was far superior to the icy, dubious charms of some puritanical moon-goddess of myth.

"Erik, Erik, my Erik," she whimpered, her breath coming in little sighs, and it was as though she had pierced me through with a red-hot blade. I needed her, now more than ever, and I could wait no longer. I grabbed my mask, put it on so that I could come out from beneath her petticoat without fear.

"Cover your eyes," I begged her, although there might not have been a need, as she scarcely seemed able to keep them open, heavy-lidded as they were with the flush of pleasure. I wanted to take no chances, however, and in a moment of stupid frenzy, I seized one of her discarded stockings. She shook her head, but I begged her to trust me and with another of her sighs, she took the stocking from me and wound it about her head so that it covered her eyes.

"Thank you," I whispered, "oh, thank you," and I swiftly unclasped my trousers, hardly daring to believe that all this was happening.

I paused for a moment as I removed my mask again, wondering if perhaps, after all, I should relish my nearly unbearable anticipation a little longer. My body screamed at me to have done with it, to bury myself up to the hilt in that slick sheathe of warm comfort, but I was nothing if not rebellious. I had waited fifty years for this; a few more moments would do me no harm.

I took her soft hand in my shaking fingers and, feeling like a debauched fiend of the lowest order, led it to my member the way she had led mine to her breast. The breath seemed to fly out of her throat; she nearly jerked her fingers back, but she calmed after only a moment and her mouth opened in a curious little _O._ When her fingers slid slowly along the shaft and reached the very tip, I let out a sob of air and nearly embarrassed myself.

"I never knew," she said softly, "that men and women could do this, that they could perform the art of love with their hands."

"There are a great many things I imagine we could discover," I said between my teeth, trying with all my will to not succumb just yet to the sweet pressure of her fingers, "at another time…but now I think…I need…I…"

I fumbled with her petticoat, yanking it down around her ankles and pressing a dozen kisses to her flushed, beautiful skin. "Tell me if it hurts, Christine," I murmured. "I'm sorry if… _ohh."_

Her soft thigh felt absolutely divine against the throbbing ache between my legs. She shook a little as I pressed myself against her folds, and a shock of pleasure arced through me like a lightning-bolt. I should be gentle, I thought, but reason had nearly left me, and I entered her with one swift thrust.

My head tipped back; oh, yes, I could see very well how a man could lose his wits over the pursuit of this warm sluice of flesh. My own hand had served me well enough in the past to satisfaction, and I had contented myself with that, but oh, this was different; this was indescribable.

Her fingers clutched at me as I moved; her nails dug into my skin deeply enough to leave marks. I didn't quite know if it was pain, or pleasure, or both which motivated her, but suddenly I felt it, the heady rush of bliss gathering to a point of pure pleasure, and I cried out, "I love you, Christine, I— _ah!"_

I spent myself inside her, buried the full length of me in her body, and felt like Lazarus being raised from the grave. And there it was; it was over, and I didn't know whether to feel elated or ashamed.

Her hands slid over my arms, and a contented hum came from between her lips. "I didn't hurt you?" I whispered. "No," she said, "well…a little…but it didn't matter." Her fingers found my face, and I hissed between my teeth and tried not to jerk away. She couldn't see me, after all, though her fingers could map out a picture well enough – but I supposed I owed her this, and it was not at all unpleasant. It was torturously good, for my skin drank in the feel of her even as my mind revolted against the idea that anyone should touch me so gently and with such care.

"What will happen to us now?" she asked softly.

"What do you mean?" I muttered, my tongue darting out to taste one of her fingers. She shivered, and a swift little giggle came from her lips. "I mean…this. Us. Will we live here, forever, or will we go elsewhere? Do you want me to sing again, for other people, on the stage?"

"Christine, have you missed it?" I asked, feeling that blade through my heart again. Her mouth flattened a little. "There are things about it that I do _not_ miss," she said, "but yes. Altogether – yes."

I felt hot and cold, and a little ill. "Christine, I—I need time to think about it. It gave me – still gives me – such pleasure to hear you sing, and to know that I had helped to shape your voice…and to hear you sing in front of the whole of Paris, well, that was a triumph, one that I am not unwilling to experience again. But you should know I am a terribly jealous man, Christine, and I am afraid I shall be now more than ever. I don't know if I can bear the thought of sharing you with the rest of the world. But I don't want to keep you locked in a gilded cage, as you called it…Christine, what will we do?"

"Talk about it tomorrow, I suppose," she sighed, and brought me down so that our skin was flush against each other's. I shivered, and kissed her on the mouth of my own volition, no longer caring about any comparison.

"I love you," I whispered. "Do you know, do you understand how much I love you?"

"Yes," she said gently. "I think so. But I'm not entirely sure you trust me."

"You wouldn't run away again, would you?" I asked wildly, and she shook her head. "No, Erik, never. Not after this. Never again."

I loved her, but the thought of losing her paralyzed me now more than ever. I told her this, and she murmured, "Never, Erik, never never, you will never lose me, I will never go away," and I felt tears leaking from the sides of my eyes. So much had happened today, almost too much.

"Perhaps you're right," I sighed, "perhaps we should talk about this tomorrow."

"And you'll let me see you?" she asked sleepily.

"I—yes," I said haltingly.

"Will you let me see you now?" she queried. "Right now? I promise, I won't be frightened."

I bit down a little on her shoulder. "Women and their insatiable curiosity," I said between my teeth. "But after all of this…why not?"

I unwound the stocking from her eyes, even though I felt the beginnings of panic rising in my breast, and I silently begged her with my eyes not to flinch, not to turn away. She did neither, my good girl; she looked me full in the face, and then she kissed me, and nothing seemed to matter much after that.

 _Fin_


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